A Troubling Chapter in the Bald Eagle's Success Story

[leftchick]

<snip>

However, the system of legal protections and government-controlled distribution of eagle parts to Native Americans is showing signs of breaking down.

And the demand for eagle feathers has begun to soar. Black-market prices for eagle feathers and parts are climbing too. And that, wildlife experts fear, could set off a wave of illegal poaching — with disastrous results.

One reason for the growing demand for feathers is that thousands of non-Indian practitioners of New Age religions have embraced Indian beliefs and ceremonies. Four of them are arguing in federal court in Utah that restrictions on possessing eagle artifacts violate their constitutional right to freedom of religion.

Demand is growing among Native Americans as well: Indian leaders, seeking a revival of the community bonds that can improve education and prevent alcoholism, are promoting traditional beliefs and ceremonies.

As powwows and other observances grow in number, so does the demand for eagle parts. Currently, it takes as long as five years to have a request filled by the National Eagle Repository.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/latimests/20050718/ts_latimes/atroublingchapterinthebaldeaglessuccessstory

[Sparkman]

1. This problem is capitalism, not native religious practice. ALL extinctions

in the modern age are due to pollution (Large greedy cost-saving groups) and commercial enterprise. When natives needed eagle feathers, did they barter with a mega-company that inventoried dozens of eagles?! Subsistance living tradition WAS FRIENDLY TO FAUNA & FLORA

[semillama]

15. well, that's not quite accurate

I would say that most extinctions in the modern era are due to habitat loss, not pollution. Not that I am saying pollution is not a factor in extinctions, just that I could probably rattle off several extinct species that died off because of habitat loss, and none that died off because of pollution as a prime cause.

and subsistence living is not necessarily friendly to all fauna and flora. Native American subsistence changed the landscape, and while their practices opened up opportunities for some species, I'm sure that it harmed others. Their subsistence practices can be percieved as "friendly" towards the environment simply because the population densities were never great enough to cause long-term strains. Where there were greater population densisties (take the proto-state of Cahokia in Illinois), these were relatively short in duration. I'm talking here about communities of several thousand in one spot, not a general dispersal of a population of similar size across a greater area.

[Sparkman]

16. What if human development is catagorized "habitat intensive" pollution.

The case against the tribes that migrated with bison and seasonal anomolies may diminish to insignificance? AND during prolonged habitation, primative living by definition would drive out tribal villages when their impact on f&f compounded, leaving Mothernature free to do her healing. Nomadics Rule!

[Coventina]

17. Actually, it is believed that our ancestors caused many extinctions

of the super-fauna during the last ice age.

The hunter-gatherer nomadic tribes are thought to have had a hand in the extinction of the mastadon, the sabre-tooth tiger, the giant sloth and others.

[Toots]

2. There is a place in SE Alaska where eagle feathers are found in great

numbers just laying all over the ground. It is outside a place called Haines AK along the chilkoot river. It is estimated that during the salmon runs there are over twenty thousand bald eagles in a very concentrated area. It is hard to imagine that it is a crime to pick a feather up off the ground but I guess it is. :shrug:

[dbackjon]

3. Yup it is.

A friend of mine works for the National Eagle Foundation here in Tennessee - they rehabilitate Eagles, as well as have captive breeding with Eagles that can not be released into the wild (but the offspring are). Any feathers, or if an Eagle should die, is frozen, and sent immediately to the Eagle repository. Even the Eagle Foundation can't keep feathers once they are no longer on a live bird.

[4_Legs_Good]

4. It's illegal to possess a feather of any bird of prey

Even road kill. As I understand it, the Feds collect them and they're for the exclusive use of Native tribes.

david

edit: spelling

[XemaSab]

9. It's illegal to have the feather

of any bird protected under the migratory bird treaty act.

Which is almost all birds.

[existentialist]

10. two notable exceptions

Turkeys and pheasants (which do not migrate but stick it out through some pretty brutal winters).

[XemaSab]

11. Legal birds:

turkeys, pheasants, quail, grouse, ptarmigan.

also house sparrows, starlings, and pigeons.

virtually everything else: illegal.

not to draw a harry potter connection, but I am the arthur weasely of biologists. If fish and game ever raided my house, I'd be in deep dooky. Hell, if fish and game ever raided my DESK I'd be in deep dooky.

[existentialist]

12. contradictory laws

And this law is, of course silly in the sense that there are regular, legally authorized hunting seasons for many species of ducks and geese. I guess you can go ahead and kill them but you just don't dare keep the feathers . . .

[XemaSab]

13. well, there are weasel words

something about "or as prescribed by the secretary of the whatever."

but I'm telling ya... somewhere out there the game warden is having a sleepless night and doesn't know why.

[Wabbajack]

19. That's patently unfair

[existentialist]

5. Eagle Sting

Back in the early '80's, when the Eagle population was more in danger than it is now, when Reagen was President, and James Watt was Secretary of the Interior, the Department of the Interior and the FBI together ran what they called operation Eagle Sting.

It involved having non-Indian undercover agents offer to buy Eagle feathers from Indians, essentially creating a market where there had been none, or virtually none. So poverty stricken Indians went out and killed eagles, and sold feathers, and got arrested, and convicted, and some did hard time.

The cynical amongst still believe that it was a smoke screen to try to maintain Watt's conservation policies that destroyed or damaged eagle habitat, and created a greater danger to the eagle populations than a few eagles taken for ceremonial purposes ever did--but back then there was a Democratic Congress that wasn't about to accept Watt's (and Reagen's) environmental policies.

[leftchick]

6. omg!

I have never read about that before. Do you have any links?

[existentialist]

8. links?

Good Lord. It happened 23 years ago. The internet barely existed.

But if you do a thorough search on James Watt I bet that you can find something.

On the other hand, I myself am a source at least to the extent that I knew some of the defendants personally, and I remember.

Some of the particular Indians involved were members of the Yankton Sioux Tribe and the Santee Sioux Tribe, and parts of the scam took place on both sides of the Missouri River where it is the border between Nebraska and South Dakota.

[WhiteTara]

18. I have spent some time in Gallup

and on several occasions I would be in a store and some white guy would be going in to every store in the area looking for feathers. Everyone seemed to know that they were feds and sort of looked at them like they were crazy. I can imagine however that they created a market that didn't exist.

[Ruby Romaine]

14. found this from 1997

The Seattle Times

March 18, 1997
(snip)

William Hugs and his brother Frank were hired by a federal agent posing as a big-game hunter to be his hunting guides on the Crow Reservation in Southeastern Montana. The Hugs shot at golden and bald eagles on the hunts and told the agent they bought and sold eagles and eagle parts, the court said.

William Hugs was sentenced to 18 months in prison and his brother to 15 months, said their lawyer. Native Americans in tribes can seek permits from the Fish and Wildlife Service to obtain eagles or eagle parts for religious use in specified ceremonies.

[Thor_MN]

7. Tangent, but last weekend I had the pleasure of seeing a Bald Eagle

take a fish not 50 feet from where I was sitting. We had just gotten back from a mid-day cruise around the lake and had seen a loon pair with a young one. We were sitting around talking and one of the loons started making a call that none of us had ever heard before. It kept making the same call over and over and then an eagle stooped from behind us and took a fish not more than 40 feet from shore. As it pulled away with the fish the loon quieted down.

We figure that the eagle was soaring above us (the bank is fairly steep there and it was quite windy) looking for lunch and the loon was alerting it's mate and offspring. It was an amazing sight. Most of our friends who had left an hour earlier were disappointed that they had decided then needed to get back to the city a bit earlier than we did.